--- product_id: 3928953 title: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" price: "19425CFA" currency: XOF in_stock: true reviews_count: 9 url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/3928953-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight store_origin: SN region: Senegal --- # Sir Gawain and the Green Knight **Price:** 19425CFA **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - **How much does it cost?** 19425CFA with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/3928953-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description desertcart.com: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: 9780393334159: Armitage, Simon: Books Review: Chivalric revival - 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' (ca. 1400) is chivalric romance literature of the late Middle Ages. It is often thought of in conjunction with 'Beowulf' (ca. 800), but these works are nearly 600 years apart, as near to one another as 'Sir Gawain' is to our own time. It is a part of the "chivalric revival" of the Hundred Years' War period, when the old order of knights and chivalry was giving way to longbow armed peasants who could unceremoniously kill from a distance, when the three-orders of knight, peasant and priest was breaking down. In this period of rising violence, social turmoil, the Black Death, famine and other "Crisis of the 14th century", there was a nostalgia among the nobility for the old days, the romantic stories from the 11th and 12th centuries found new popularity. 'Sir Gawain' then is a continuation updated with contemporary aesthetics and sensibilities- a chivalric revival. It's this type of work that 'Don Quixote' would devastatingly satirize 200 years later, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of the medieval romance and opening the way to a new form: the novel. Armitage has done a great job with the translation, by keeping the alliteration intact it makes for excellent reading aloud, the tongue gets a real work-out but pretty soon the guttural Germanic accent takes over with a short, crisp, pounding rhythm. By the end you feel ready to become a good Medieval knight, or at least better understand the mindset. Review: Very Satisfying - First of all, note the five stars and don't read too much negativity into this review. It's just that I like the translation very much and a few missteps (as they appear to me) make me want to speak out. It has been said elsewhere that in some places Armitage chose to stray from the original even where the original is quite natural to the modern ear and, in rare cases, he used language which is jarring and discordant. I agree. Here is an example which, for me, was the most discordant ... Original: But in his honde he hade a holyn bobbe, That is grattest in grene when greves ar bare, And an ax in his other, a hoge and unmete, A spetos sparthe to expoun in spelle, quo-so myght. Translation: but held in his hand a sprig of holly--- of all the evergreens the greenest ever--- and in the other hand held the mother of all axes, a cruel piece of kit I kid you not Those last two lines made me blink. This is early in the poem and I almost gave up on the translation right there but am glad I did not. Other than a few rare examples like that (and none other so glaring) I enjoyed it immensely. This is a "five star" translation. What Armitage has done in this translation is not easy and deserves respect. He manages more than mere "accessibility" for the modern reader but also maintains a natural sense of speaking along with alliteration like the "percussive hoof beats" mentioned in another review. As they say, pure poetry. Anyway, here is my attempt at a translation of the above: but in his hand he had a holly sprig, that is greenest of green when groves are bare, and an ax in his other, huge to excess, a wicked war-ax to put into words, if one could. Note that the first two of those lines are nearly unchanged from the original, an example of where the (almost) original reads quite naturally. I'm still not satisfied with that last line but have had my nose so close to it I can no longer see the forest for the trees so will let it stand as it is (for now). ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #50,400 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #5 in Medieval Literary Criticism (Books) #41 in Ancient & Classical Poetry #556 in Folklore (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,308) | | Dimensions | 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inches | | Edition | A New Verse Translation | | ISBN-10 | 0393334155 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0393334159 | | Item Weight | 2.31 pounds | | Language | English | | Print length | 208 pages | | Publication date | November 17, 2008 | | Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company | ## Images ![Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81I9RNZbqbL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Chivalric revival *by S***H on March 29, 2008* 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' (ca. 1400) is chivalric romance literature of the late Middle Ages. It is often thought of in conjunction with 'Beowulf' (ca. 800), but these works are nearly 600 years apart, as near to one another as 'Sir Gawain' is to our own time. It is a part of the "chivalric revival" of the Hundred Years' War period, when the old order of knights and chivalry was giving way to longbow armed peasants who could unceremoniously kill from a distance, when the three-orders of knight, peasant and priest was breaking down. In this period of rising violence, social turmoil, the Black Death, famine and other "Crisis of the 14th century", there was a nostalgia among the nobility for the old days, the romantic stories from the 11th and 12th centuries found new popularity. 'Sir Gawain' then is a continuation updated with contemporary aesthetics and sensibilities- a chivalric revival. It's this type of work that 'Don Quixote' would devastatingly satirize 200 years later, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of the medieval romance and opening the way to a new form: the novel. Armitage has done a great job with the translation, by keeping the alliteration intact it makes for excellent reading aloud, the tongue gets a real work-out but pretty soon the guttural Germanic accent takes over with a short, crisp, pounding rhythm. By the end you feel ready to become a good Medieval knight, or at least better understand the mindset. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Satisfying *by B***K on November 3, 2008* First of all, note the five stars and don't read too much negativity into this review. It's just that I like the translation very much and a few missteps (as they appear to me) make me want to speak out. It has been said elsewhere that in some places Armitage chose to stray from the original even where the original is quite natural to the modern ear and, in rare cases, he used language which is jarring and discordant. I agree. Here is an example which, for me, was the most discordant ... Original: But in his honde he hade a holyn bobbe, That is grattest in grene when greves ar bare, And an ax in his other, a hoge and unmete, A spetos sparthe to expoun in spelle, quo-so myght. Translation: but held in his hand a sprig of holly--- of all the evergreens the greenest ever--- and in the other hand held the mother of all axes, a cruel piece of kit I kid you not Those last two lines made me blink. This is early in the poem and I almost gave up on the translation right there but am glad I did not. Other than a few rare examples like that (and none other so glaring) I enjoyed it immensely. This is a "five star" translation. What Armitage has done in this translation is not easy and deserves respect. He manages more than mere "accessibility" for the modern reader but also maintains a natural sense of speaking along with alliteration like the "percussive hoof beats" mentioned in another review. As they say, pure poetry. Anyway, here is my attempt at a translation of the above: but in his hand he had a holly sprig, that is greenest of green when groves are bare, and an ax in his other, huge to excess, a wicked war-ax to put into words, if one could. Note that the first two of those lines are nearly unchanged from the original, an example of where the (almost) original reads quite naturally. I'm still not satisfied with that last line but have had my nose so close to it I can no longer see the forest for the trees so will let it stand as it is (for now). ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ New best Gawain translation *by W***D on March 27, 2010* I've read a lot of translations of the poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (I regularly teach it), and I thought that nobody could outdo the standard, quite wonderful version by Marie Borroff (also published by Norton). Well, I've just finished reading Simon Armitage's amazing translation, and I was wrong. Armitage's should be the new standard version used by students and lay readers everywhere. It captures both the energetic alliteration of the original and also its wonderful toggling between formal and colloquial registers. It does a magnificent job of approximating the galloping rhythm of the long verses, but is equally stunning at managing the "bob and wheel" that brings each long verse to comically neat closure (e.g., see Armitage's description of Gawain's emblem, the pentangle -- "[he] bore that badge on both / his shawl and shield alike. / A prince who talked the truth. A notable. A knight," ll.636-39). It takes some poetic chutzpah to fiddle with the Gawain-poet in this way. But Armitage has the versifying courage and the nervy tone just right. I think the 14th-century poet, whoever he was, would admire and appreciate this new version. That's also because Armitage shows humility as a translator too when it matters. For example, he works hard to preserve the delicate moral ambiguities of the original poem. It's difficult to translate Gawain's refusal to give the seductress, the lady of the manor (where his humility, his loyalty and his self-control are tested) a token of his affection with the perfect blend of courtesy and self-regard that is there in the original ("Hit is not your honour to haf at this tyme / A glove for a garysoun of Gawaynes giftes," ll. 1806-07), but Armitage's "it strikes me as unseemly that you should receive / nothing greater than a glove as a keepsake from Gawain" hits the mark pretty well; by placing Gawain's reference to himself in the third-person at the end of the line, he makes us wonder if the hero isn't buying in a bit too easily to the reputation that has preceded him. I'm not going to repeat the plot of the whole poem here; it's well known, easy to find online, and other amazon reviewers have gone over it. Armitage's confidence as a translator is expressed in his willingness to provide the original language of the poem on a facing page (Borroff's translation does not do this), so the reader can take a long look at the luscious original. Sure, he changes a word here or there (every translation does this), but Armitage is scrupulously true to the spirit of the original. ## Frequently Bought Together - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso) - Catiline's Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, Histories (Oxford World's Classics) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sn/products/3928953-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/3928953-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight) --- *Product available on Desertcart Senegal* *Store origin: SN* *Last updated: 2026-04-26*